“I really wanted it to feel like you’re really there,” said Lindsey Copeland, writer and director of Girls Night, a new movie playing Thursday at the Richmond International Film Festival.
“I really wanted it to feel like you’re really there,” said Lindsey Copeland, writer and director of Girls Night, a new movie playing Thursday at the Richmond International Film Festival.
“Like you’re really apart of this gang, like you’re having a really intimate fly on the wall feel with this film.”
Girls Night is the story of five female friends in Boston who haven’t spent much time together since they graduated college a couple of years earlier.
They attempt to rectify this with a night out to see their favorite band, The Field Effect.
Their plans change when one of the girls loses the tickets and they have to retrace her steps to find them.
The film is shot in found footage-style, focused on this one night in Boston. But it does jump time between that night and the character who shot the film talking about the footage to her producers.
Copeland was inspired by her own experiences as a 2008 Boston University graduate who remained in her college town.
“I was preoccupied a lot with my friendships, particularly my close female friends,” Copeland said. “And how we’ve grown over the years and we all live in different places now, the friendships that you keep and lose and how that changes over time and how that’s so important.”
Copeland said this film, unlike most set in Boston, highlights the “subculture of youth” that is so prevalent in the city.
“There are so many colleges and universities there and that really impacts a lot of the culture,” Copeland said. “So what really happens to those people who stay in Boston after they graduate and where does growing up factor into that?”
While Girls Night is aimed at a college aged audience and its title will draw a female crowd, Copeland said she’s received positive feedback from men and women of all ages.
“I’ve had so many women and men too, but particularly women in their fifties and sixties that said oh my god it made me want to call my girlfriends and want to hang out with them,” Copeland said.
Copeland said even men will like the film’s genuineness and humor.
“What’s interesting for men is feeling like they’re really getting to be a part of a group of real girls,” Copeland said. “Not a glossy high-res Hollywood version of it, but feeling like what it’s really like to be around them and watch how a lot of female friendships and male friendships – like male to male and female to female – can be very similar.”
The actors, including Richmond-native Jennifer Ferguson (image above, not holding stuffed duck), are honest and true to their characters. Copeland said this is exemplified in the 25 to 30 percent of the film that is unscripted, which she finds herself quoting from time to time.
“It’s really about connection and friendship and how that changes over time but it’s stuck in comedy,” Copeland said. “It’s very torn down, it’s very raw, it’s very real. But it’s real in a way that will really tickle you because you’ll see a lot of yourself in the film.”
The Richmond International Film Festival is screening Girls Night at the Byrd Theatre, Thursday, Feb. 24 at 9:15 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here.
